Personal health, development and performance are increasingly important concerns within our society. Over hundreds of years, hypnosis has continued to produce positive results in a very wide variety of subjects including health (mental and physical), performance enhancement, learning and personal issues/development.
Areas where results relating to hypnosis have been successfully proven include: Improved cancer survival rates, Cancer pain reduction, Severe pain control, Healing bones quicker, and Immune system strengthening.
Additionally, hypnosis is currently used extensively in many therapeutic realms including the treatment of anxiety, phobias, obesity, behavioral medicine and smoking cessation, as well as with more severe psychopathology and post-traumatic conditions.
The term ‘hypnosis’ typically denotes an interaction between one person, the ‘hypnotist’ or ‘hypnotherapist’, and another person or people, the ‘subject’ or ‘subjects’. In this interaction the hypnotist attempts to influence the subjects' perceptions, feelings, thinking and behaviour by asking them to concentrate on ideas and images that may evoke the intended effects. Hypnosis and hypnotic procedures have two basic elements, trance and suggestion.
The term ‘trance’ relates to the user being in a sufficiently relaxed state such that they are susceptible to suggestions which are aimed directly at the user's subconscious mind. Although science has not clearly identified a unique and tangible ‘hypnotic signature’, namely a machine-detectable unique brainwave activity pattern which confirms that the subject has reached the desired hypnotic state, hypnosis therapy is still recognised through both research and practice to be a highly effective, wide-ranging and safe mental phenomena.
However, there are many negative connotations and pre/misconceptions that are connected to hypnosis in general. These factors have unfortunately limited the acceptance and usage across a wider population.
Some people believe that they will loose control of themselves and be open to unwanted suggestions not previously approved.
Over many years the media has frequently portrayed hypnosis inaccurately or sensationally, which has created numerous misunderstandings, misperceptions and clichés. Despite hypnosis simply being a state of sleep, people are still nervous that this hypnotic state will remain with them forever and prevent them from awaking.
Further problems associated with hypnosis therapy include an inherent inability to know when to deliver the key subject message (i.e. suggestions or instructions) for maximum effectiveness. This is because without an understanding of when the conscious mind has relaxed, the therapist has to estimate what they consider to be the most suitable time to deliver the instructional command about the hypnotic session subject matter. Currently science has no way of defining exactly when an individual is in hypnosis.
Traditionally, hypnotherapists use only external physical parameters to gauge the depth of hypnotic trance, including pace of breathing, flushing of checks, slumping of shoulders. The therapist may find defining the level of relaxation very difficult to assess. Additionally, they will find it very hard to determine how ‘unengaged’ or relaxed the conscious mind is at any given moment. This could result in the therapist delivering the important instructional suggestions (around the desired subject matter) when it could be much less effective than at other times in the induction. This reduces the overall effectiveness of the therapy.
Frequently in traditional practice, patients become too relaxed and fall into normal sleep. This is not a preferred state of mind for hypnosis to produce results and has limited benefit to the client. Unfortunately, the hypnotherapist is often not aware that they are asleep as they have limited capability to gauge the level of relaxation.
In addition, hypnosis as it is currently administered is typically only successful for a small percentage of people/users (approx 2 out of every 10 people). This may be as a result of the above problems of not knowing when a subject is in a susceptible state.
Furthermore, hypnotherapists often use the same repeated script (or collection of hypnotic techniques) that they are familiar with, delivering this script with their own voice. Often there is a limited variety of techniques and familiarity of content is valued above actual effectiveness.
People are individual, and not all techniques work with everyone. With traditional delivery of hypnosis, it is impossible to determine the extent of individual success and personal appropriateness that a particular techniques may have.
Furthermore, no therapist can be an expert across every subject matter that they may be requested to use hypnosis to treat. Therefore, many therapists specialise only in a small number of subjects. This may mean that users find it difficult to find a specialist for their subject area. Some hypnotherapists may try and administer in subjects that they have limited experience or understanding of, using a simple generic hypnotic process. However, typically this method does not result in success.
Basic hypnosis may be delivered using multi-media delivery methods. This involves providing a standard hypnosis instruction continuously: the hypnotic instruction is not personalised or tailored in any way to the individual user and as there is no feedback, this delivery mechanism suffers from the same problems discussed above in that a user may not be in a susceptible state when the hypnosis instructions/suggestions are delivered.
Current methods of hypnosis delivery cannot administer personalised therapy to more than one patient at a time. This limits the number of patients any therapist can treat at any time to one. As hypnotherapists can only administer to one patient at a time, session costs are high as they are required to cover the therapists exclusive time with each patient
There is very little understanding of the varied impact that different content may have on the success of an induction. For example some content may ask a user to start visualising before the user is in a state of mind that supports visualisation (or at least maximises the likelihood of being able to visualise). Other content may require a user to mentally (or consciously) engage in an exercise. However, the user may be very relaxed and this may disturb their depth of relaxation and therefore the success of the experience.
Increasing healthcare costs and an ever increasing desire to reach greater levels of performance means that there is a growing need for an alternative therapy that can bring quantifiable benefits in a very wide variety of subjects.
Hypnosis may be used to treat a wide variety of areas, including: pain control and relief, migraine and headache reduction, irritable bowel syndrome, immune system boosting, arthritic pain, sports performance, erectile dysfunction, treatment of warts, preparing for surgery, smoking cessation, weight loss, treatment of anxiety, obesity, hay fever, hypertension and stress, asthma, haemophilia, memory improvement, concentration level improvement, improved self discipline, post traumatic stress, dentistry, child birth, sexual performance, fears, phobias, self perception, speed reading, sales skills, presentation skills, improved relationships, attention deficit disorders, and learning disabilities. It is to be appreciated that this list is not exhaustive.
In addition, it is desirable that this therapy be available at an affordable price without any side effects.